Howsham Hall from the lawn

Slide 2: Sir William Bamburgh was the builder, about 1612, of Howsham Hall, taking the materials for the edifice, it has been said, from the ruins of Kirkham Priory which had fallen into his hands. For this act of sacriledge, these Bamburghs involved Howsham in a malison of St Hilda. A malison we may explain is the opposite of a benediction. As the story goes, St Hilda gathered up her skirts and let loose a malison in the house of Howsham. She decreed that the male heirs of the estate should perish from time to time. The decree has been suffciently realised to give it credence as a legend. The male line of the Bamburghs died out , and later the last male by intermarriage with the Wentworths became extinct, and lastly, the late Colonel Sir George Chomley, “the last of his line”, whose widow erected the church to his memory in 1860. So much for the malison that o’er shadows Howsham.